Near the town of Sakerid's Nasani inn, Bella's party had encountered one of the three foreign demon kings and had been thrown into battle. 【Machine Creator】 Andrea's forces had already departed for the Yunies church, meaning that this battle was a true battle between demon kings.

Bella herself didn't take part in the battle, she had taken Kriss, Lisha, Susan, Mia, Angel, and Noesha with her and boarded a hovercraft headed towards the Yunies church. Just Dolores and Eleanor would have been sufficient to handle a single demon king that hadn't even completely regained their power, not to mention the fact that the princess of the demon world, Hadias, as well as the all but confirmed transmigrator, Ariel, were supporting the two allied demon kings.

Both sides of this fight were dark powers, meaning that there was nothing like a righteous side in this battle. Kriss and Lisha had joined Bella's side temporarily and it was their first times after becoming this world's heroes that they were fighting side-by-side with demons, not being used to it, the two of them fought a little hesitantly.

Ariel had also joined Bella's side, but she had been forced to do so by Bella, who had promised to keep Ariel's secret from anyone else as long as Ariel helped her this time. Even though Ariel wasn't sure if this 'perverted girl' would actually keep her word, but she felt that Bella would definitely 'bully' her if Ariel rejected Bella's offer. Ariel could only accept Bella's request for the sake of keeping her chast.i.ty safe.

Different from Lisha and Kriss, it seemed as if Ariel was rather familiar with fighting alongside demons, she skillfully changed a set the demonic equipment that Mia had forged that just happened to be the most suited to her and then took a place in the formation where she would be able to best use her magic without needing to be told a thing. Ariel definitely wasn't a simple hero.

The one who had engaged Bella's party in battle was a female demon king. Originally, as they were both from the dark side, 【Heavenly King】 Dolores really wanted to avoid conflict with this other demon king. There were no recorded instances of an all-out fight between demon kings in this world's history, so no one knew what would happen if two demon kings were to fight.

However, this demon king wasn't using her true form, but had forcefully occupied the body of a demon, a familiar face at that too. The unfortunate demon was the 1st princess of one of the 4 demon empires, Margaret Aknes of the Mephyr Empire. Dolores recognized Aknes' true ident.i.ty with only a glance, it was this same girl that had led the delegation from the Mephy Empire when they had came to propose a marriage between Dolores and one of their princes.

After finding out that it was a familiar face, Dolores couldn't just ignore this, especially as Aknes was one of the few friends that she had back amongst the demons. After a demon king occupies the body for a certain amount of time, the body's original soul would be completely consumed and absorbed by the demon king, it would be too late for the unfortunate 1st princess if that were to happen. Currently, it seemed that Aknes had not been controlled for too long and there was still a chance to save her.

Aknes' luxurious hair was a dark blue and she had the same purple irises as Dolores, a sign of being a high-cla.s.s demon. Her beauty didn't lose to that of Dolores, their figures and heights being similar, meaning that Aknes also had an 'explosive' body. Bella had encountered three different female demons so far, Dolores, Hadias, and Aknes, all of them possessing the 'explosive body' trait proved to Bella that the rumour that demons produced some top-tier beauties had some truth in it.

Aknes was currently wearing a pure black set of demon king's armour that was engraved with demonic symbols that praised death, the armour most likely belonged to the demon king that had currently occupied Akne's body. Between Akne's eyebrows was a strange black mark, likely the source of power for whichever demon king that had possessed Aknes.

After a few rapid exchange of blows in an aerial battle, Aknes who was possessed by the【Death King】 had all of her armour beaten to shreds by 【Heavenly King】 Dolores and Hadias, but all of the blows had been dealt by Dolores while Hadias was only responsible for providing some moral support from the sidelines.

【Death King】 wasn't necessarily that much weaker than Dolores, it was more because of the fact that Dolores just happened to counter her. Aknes was a pure-blooded demon, meaning that her power was completely that of the dark side. It was natural that she would be at a disadvantage when fighting with the 【Heavenly King】 who had the ability to use holy type magic. There was also the fact that 【Death King】 had not occupied Aknes' body for a sufficient amount of time to completely eradicate her soul, and Aknes had been resisting 【Death King】's control this entire time, causing the latter to be unable to fight with all her power.

"Who are you! d.a.m.n, why would there be other demon kings here!"

Against the questioning of the 【Death King】, Dolores remained silent, she had not spoken a single word after coming to blows with 【Death King】, because Dolores didn't want this demon king to remember her voice and come looking for trouble later. All of the beauties present were wearing 'Dark の Mask' that Mia had given them, covering their entire face except their eyes, for the sole purpose of not letting any outsiders find out their ident.i.ties.

【Death King】 looked a little helplessly at Dolores, it was evident that the latter didn't plan on giving her name, but 【Death King】 was also unable to beat her, if Dolores decided to press the attack, 【Death King】 would be forced into abandoning this body and making a run for it. While 【Death King】 was still trying to think of a way to minimize her loses, 【Blood King】 Eleanor who had been faking a low-tier demon on the ground for quite a while opened her energy wings characteristic of a demon king and quickly took to the skies, flying up behind Aknes.

Before 【Death King】 even had the chance to turn, Dolores who was in front of her suddenly launched an attack of her own. After a flash of purple and red, 【Death King】 who had forcefully kept herself up was finally struck down, a black wisp leaving Aknes' body before she hit the ground. The black wisp was the soul of the 【Death King】 who had occupied Aknes' body for several days, the black wisp managed to escape under the cover of night.

Dolores quickly caught Aknes in her arms before the latter hit the ground, she didn't have any plans on pursuing the escaped 【Death King】. During the 'meeting of the hot springs' Bella had already told everyone to let these three demon kings escape, as long as none of Bella's party had their lives came under threat, now wasn't the time to declare war on the twelve ancient demon kings, there may still be a chance that they could be friends in the future, with both sides being demon kings and all.

Looking at the black wisp that was 【Death King】's soul fly further and further away, the princess of the demon world, Hadias, looked feverishly at 【Heavenly King】 Dolores and 【Blood King】 Eleanor. Hadias had just witnessed the beginning of a new legend, the 12 demon kings that seemed so invincible ten thousand years ago had finally suffered a defeat.

Ariel, who had been watching from the ground, quietly let out the breath that she had been holding and returned the black tome that she had been about to open into the s.p.a.ce beside her. Due to the lack of light during the night, none of the other beauties were able to see Ariel's strange actions. Ariel's black tome seemed to have an intensely strong evil aura that was sealed away, opening this tome would cause Ariel to change into her 'darkened' form.

___

The Yunies church had been completely been lit up by a bright flash of light. Bella's group and 【Machine Creator】 Andrea's ground forces easily occupied the town of Sakerid's largest church. Using the treasure that Bella had obtained from the 【Light Creator】, 'Light's Gift', Susan was able to disperse all of the malicious spirits in the area without much effort.

The 【Night King】 and her subordinates who had occupied the Yunies church had already fled before the arrival of Bella's forces. 【Night King】 had not yet found a suitable host, and was currently much weaker than【Death King】 who at least had found a body to use. 【Night King】 didn't dare to face the 【Light Creator】's power and had fled as soon as she had seen Susan.

Because of this, Bella and the others were able to occupy the Yunies church without any fighting, which was probably the best outcome for Bella, as she didn't want to kill 【Night King】 anyways. This world still needed some demon kings, or else the world's heroes would be forced to lose their jobs.

Behind a broken statue of the G.o.d of light, Bella was able to locate the Troublemaker Betia through the reaction of her treasure 'Apocalyptic Instinct' that was in Bella's hands. Betia, also known as the 【Origin of Plagues】, as a member of the Troublemakers, her personal power wasn't that outstanding, but she had the ability to bring an endless outbreak of plagues and epidemics to a world.

The outbreak this time was caused by a virus that Betia had created for 'fun', it was only one of the few that she had planned to unleash upon this world, but had been stopped by the Betrayed that started to hunt her down. It was kind of funny, in a dark way, that the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen) wasn't saved by a legendary hero, but a monstrosity that harboured great hatred towards this entire world.

"Noesha you're here, save me! I'm being chased by a scary thing! Hurry up and take me to another world, this entire region has been affected by 【Extrdimensional Creator】 Alfreia's magic so I can't run! You're my last hope, Noesha!"

"I'm afraid that I can't do that, I'm following the instructions of Bella nee-sama right now. She said that you've done something terrible and that you should take responsibility for it yourself~!"

"I did something bad? All I did was spread a virus, one of the lowest-tier ones too, there are still a few more that I was…"

Bella looked a little speechless at the little girl with light green hair and emerald coloured eyes that overflowed with the aura of life. Betia wore an emerald-green lolita style dress that seemed rather familiar to Bella, if she remembered correctly, she had designed this dress for Noesha as a gift, it was a mystery as to how it had ended up on Betia.

This was the most deceiving appearence that Bella had encoutered so far. This loli that was t.i.tled the 【Origin of Plagues】 gave off a pure feel of nature and life, if one were to give her a divine sceptre and place a crown of flowers on her head, you could definitely pa.s.s her off as a G.o.ddess of life or a G.o.ddess of nature. Who would suspect that such an innocent and vibrant looking loli was the 【Origin of Plagues】 that had spread so much pain and death throughout worlds?

"Betia, your 'lowest-tier' virus has caused tens of thousand of humans to become…"

"This is evolution! You are Noesha's nee-sama, Bella, right? Don't you think it's great how humans no longer have to fear death, having their bodies live forever on this beautiful world, isn't it a blessing…"

"Stop, stop, stop! We'll change topics for now, let's discuss the reparations for your virus ruining all of our clothes!"

"About that… I'm sorry, I didn't expect my virus to have that kind of effect on clothes."

Bella wiped the cold sweat off her brow and decided to change the way she talked with Bethia. This loli was definitely as black-hearted as can be, and she didn't seem to know so either, there was no way to communicate with Betia if you treated her as a normal person!

"Can you stop this virus, we've found your 'Apocalyptic Instinct'"

"I can, but… I've never stopped an outbreak before, and isn't this is a chance for humanity to evolve…"

"That's enough, you can stop talking! All you need to do right now is follow my instructions and then we'll help you get out of here, or else we're going to have to leave you here."

___

In the town of Sakerid's Sak square that was located at the town center, the newly revived Betrayed was furiously attacking the four Creators that had encircled it. Abusing it's cheat ability of having infinite revives, this Betrayed was able to fight back against 【Light Creator】 Vianne, 【Dark Creator】 Mystica, 【Extrdimensional Creator】 Alfreia, and 【Magic Creator】 Bethia.

Is wasn't that the four Creators couldn't necessarily kill the Betrayed, but that they would have use more force that would very likely effect the entire Coristel continent. Because of not wanting to face the awkward situation of sinking the entire continent, the four Creators only encircled the Betrayed and used enough force to keep it from breaking through and running amok elsewhere.

"It's back again, what's that, the 85th time? I'm getting kind of hungry, those stupid male Creators sure have nothing on their hands to make these useless things, Vianne-sama, what do we do?"

"We'll keep it her for now, use magic to shred this guy Bethia, don't get near it. Its hatred is just too strong that it might even affect us if we get too close."

Right as the Betrayed was about to launch itself at the encirclement once more, its body suddenly went limp and hit the floor, swiftly turning into a vile puddle of flesh. As the four Creators looked to each other wondering what had happened, all of the infected zombies within Sakerid collectively turned into puddles of flesh as well.

"It seems that Bella was successful, the virus has been… So it's like this, I understand now, this Betrayed used those zombies to die in its place, once those zombies disappear, it can no longer keep reviving. It's a shame that its hatred has not yet dispersed, now it's not a matter of whether it will return, but when."

【Dark Creator】 Mystica looked at the puddles of flesh in the ground and discovered the vital step to the Betrayed's ability to revive endlessly. Due to the fact that it was now deep into the night, the Betrayed's hatred had followed in footsteps of the soul of 【Death King】 and escaped under the cover of night. No matter how it came to be, the Creators were still partly responsible for its creation as they were the ones who summoned Saviours.

Even though none of the Creators present were the ones who had summoned this Betrayed as a Saviour, but they were still part of the same faction as the one who had. Out of their guilt, the four Creators didn't chase after the escaped Betrayed, perhaps as an apology in place of the Creator that had summoned it initially.

___

As the zombies created by the virus turned into puddles of flesh, the town of Sakerid had finally been freed from its peril. The demon king who had been at the Saniyah graveyard in the town's north-west quadrant had fled as well.

When the rays broke over Sakerid during the next day's dawn, the reinforcements from the Octavian Empire(Knights) and the Aldrich Empire(Magic) entered the town devoid of any life. The entire town seemed as if it had been through an apocalypse, but there was not a single body to be seen on the streets nor underneath the rubble of the town's broken buildings, the human soldiers who walked through the town's desolate streets felt a strong weight on their hearts.

The Church of Light's templar knights had been reduced to half their number and the Gabriel Empire's royal guards had lost a third of their members. After they had managed to pulled out of the town just before the town had been liberated, so they had not seen what transpired within the town, but none of the survivors were willing to talk about their experiences within the town, evidently not wanting to recall such nightmarish memories.

Other survivors included the Church of Light's four holy maidens, Susan, Daisy, Hayley, and Sophia; the Ignaz families young lady Ivy; the 1st princess of the Octavian Empire, Irene, as well as the 10th princess Lisha and their two maidservants. They told others that they had managed to survive by hiding in the nearby town of Paknir, but didn't mention a single thing about the virus that had caused the outbreak.

The holy maidens from 3 different factions unexpectedly gave the same reason as to how the town was saved, claiming that the heroes Kriss and Lisha had teamed up with them and together they had manage to disperse the 《Undead Apocalypse》 by killing the demon that had been running amok. As for the Aldrich Empire's 5th princess, Ariel, she and Lola had disguised themselves as the two maidservants and the outside world paid them no attention.

The Church of Light claimed to the public that the cause of the situation was the fault of the demons, it wasn't long ago that the 8th Human-Demon war had started and was still ongoing, and the blame was easily thrown onto the demons. The Gabriel Empire was the party who had lost the most from this event, with no one daring to live in the region anymore, the Laerte defensive line and the Alva Duchy that had been bloodwashed by the demons and beastmen; there was now a ma.s.sive amount of land that was uninhabited and unattended to. There was also the death pensions that had to be paid for all of the soldiers that had died.

Right as the Gabriel Empire were dealing with their nearly empty coffers, the wealthy grain merchant Sir Clement offered the Empire a large sum to purchase this now uninhabited land, as well as wis.h.i.+ng that the Gabriel Empire can give the land's rights to his adoptive daughter, Bellina, who would be his successor and should have a n.o.ble rank worthy of it.

Buying n.o.blity wasn't something unheard of or something that couldn't be exposed to the public, but the amount of land bought this time was simply too large. Previously, the highest rank that had been bought was that of Count, but quite evidently the rank of Count wasn't suitable to govern such a large swathe of land. As the emperor was hesitating whether or not to sell the land, the Church of Light suddenly came out and praised Sir Clement in public for his contributions to the empire's people with his large donations of food and other necessities for the people displaced by this disaster, and that his adoptive daughter Bellina would be blessed by the G.o.d of light.

After hearing the Church of Light, the Gabriel Empire's Emperor made a swift decision, deftly ignoring his court's disagreement and bestowed the t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.ess of Saniyah upon Clement's adoptive daughter Bellina. Granting her the territories of the destroyed Alva duchy, the land along the Laerte line, all the way up to where the town of Sakerid was located.

This deal was something that the emperor believed that he gained more from, a large swathe of wasteland for a t.i.tle and enough gold to keep the entire empire running for a year, what was there to lose?

Due to the rather awkward situation and method as to how Bellina became a Duke, the emperor delegated the recognition ceremony to the Church of Light who had spoken for Bellina in the first place, and surprisingly the Church didn't turn this down and had even sent all four of their holy maidens to hold the ceremony.

This was something that the old emperor had not expected, normally only a single holy maiden would be sent by the Church even when it was the crowning ceremony of one of the 5 great empire's emperor. But for a simple Duke's recognition ceremony to draw all four holy maidens? The emperor suspected that Clement had some underground relations with the Church of Light, but decided not to dig further, after all, he wasn't really losing much anyways.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Saniyah, Bellinam would become the first female Duke in the history of the human empires and would her name would be remembered by history through written records for ages to come. However, Bellina was just a fake name, her real name was Bella, and it was still unclear which side had gained more from this deal.

Currently, it was no more than half a month from the opening ceremony of the Olsyvia academy, the 1st ranked school in all of the human empires. This news had stolen the headlines of all newspapers across the continent and the news about Bellina was buried, not many people currently knew about first female Duke in the history of the human empires!

—TL NOTES—
This is the end of volume 1 [Surging Undercurrents Beneath the Human Empires] Took me 8 months but here it is….
If you're reading this on Creative Novels I'm most definitely at camp right now and as of July 5th, 2018, I currently have 0 chapters saved up and I leave on the 8th. I'm going to try and save enough chapters to start volume 2, [The Biggest Problem Student at Olsyvia Academy] by the first week of August. This means that there will be AT LEAST 2 weeks of no releases, but I'll make up for them after I return. Sorry.
- Heliakon
—END—